Cut Out
by FieryxEyes731
Summary: There’s only the here and the now, this is all she has and it’s all she’ll ever have. Cuddy character study, really mild Huddy & Wuddy. Set after Mirror, Mirror. One word of foul language.


**Disclaimer: Never have, do not, never will, own House M.D.**

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She stares wearily at the ever-growing stack of work on her desk. She sighs; she knows she'll regret it tomorrow, but she's leaving early tonight.

Her home is pristine and a well-earned symbol of her status in life. Superior. Powerful. Alone.

She's not cut out for this, she thinks angrily. She's not cut out for anything. She'll never be the proper boss. She'll never be a mother. She'll never be happy.

She'll never be a desirable friend, either. She has no time to keep up with the few she had, and she has no time to meet people anyway. She misses the days of sleepovers and gossip and fantasizing about the future. But there is no future; there's only the here and the now, this is all she has and it's all she'll ever have. Because if she can't be a friend, how is she supposed to be anything more?

Women her age are married with teens and a dog and the steady repetition of commitment and family that she longs for. The perfect cookie cut out of what she wants to be, what she should be. But it's too late; she's missed the deadline.

She supposes that she dug her own grave long ago, back in college. She wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to be somebody. But her drive and her perseverance only pushed people away. She has what she wanted, but it's not what she wants anymore.

She's willingly settle for a middle-class housewife status, but she's already past the point of no return. It's not meant to happen; it will never happen.

So this is what her life has whittled down to: a demanding job and an empty bed. Work is all she has, and sometimes she doesn't want it all. Others would kill for her job. She'd kill to get rid of it.

After all, it's gotten her nothing but material things. Clutter to fill the crevices of her mind. Stuff to fill the void space in her heart. Things used to make poor attempts to lure people in.

And she tosses another negative pregnancy test to the side, because she doesn't need more confirmation. She's not cut out to be a mother.

She stares at herself in the sterilized mirror. Her features are blurred with age and exhaustion and she imagines a baby in her arms. But imagination's worthless- it only makes the fall back to reality harder.

She's empty-handed. Empty-souled. Empty.

She plays House's games, because it's either that or quit and Cuddy's never been a quitter, especially in something she wanted so much, so long. It's been whittled down to tossing innuendos back and forth, her tongue as sharp as his, but her heart softer. Maybe it could work out, they could work out. But House is stubborn and immature; he wants sex and food and sleep. She longs for something more, something buried deep in the depths of her desires, too shy to see the light of hope.

She wants love, but she's not enough of a fool to hope for it.

She thought that maybe, maybe, just a dimming slice of light, maybe it could work with Wilson. But that's hope, and she can't have that. Wilson has married and divorced, married and divorced, married and divorced. She doesn't want to continue the cycle, to become a new, pathetic statistic that in the end would only get her further from the beginning.

And now House lives high and mighty because a patient spit back what was left unsaid. What should have remained unsaid. He gets to run their fucked-up relationship. As if he needs more to feed his ego.

At least Wilson runs the juvenile genius. But if Wilson outranks House and House outranks Cuddy, then doesn't Wilson outrank Cuddy too? She wonders desperately if anyone really follows her anymore.

A child. A child of her own would follow her. There's a blind panic in her that knows when she leaves the world that she'll be remembered professionally, and as nothing more.

She crawls into the large bed, keeping to one side, as always. At least Cameron got to wet her tongue with the taste of having someone next to her. Someone real, someone who won't be in a hurry to leave in the morning, forever.

And Wilson's had three tries. What do they have, did they have, that she doesn't? She wants this, she really does. But you can't always get what you want.

But a child, she thinks again and again, could fill that gap almost just as well. And a child can't just up and leave like a spouse can. Eighteen years of companionship.

Except she tried playing mommy before and House was right, she sucked. It was uncomfortable. She'd been stupid and awkward and naïve. She didn't warm up to the kid; the kid didn't warm up to her. She lacks the mothering gene, she'd told Wilson. So why does she want this so much? It's predetermined failure at its most, but she can't deal with the empty pit of life that she leads.

And she's tried every method, ever option. She's losing it all, and time is slipping away.

She's jealous, more jealous than she's ever thought possible. Everyone's happy, in some way. House is always gloating. Wilson's had the real thing. Cameron's had the real thing and she has something real now, too. Chase got whom he's always pined for. Foreman's learned he's happy where he is. Envy eats away at her, pity, self-pity…

And the world doesn't stop and people are still born and they still die, no matter how many temptations and doubts and misfortunes Cuddy suffers through.

People give up their babies, kill them to keep the simple monotony of their almost flawless lives moving as usual. It's not fair, how they get a living body inside them just to have it torn out and die before it's even born. And she can't even convince her body to conceive.

She drifts off to sleep, knowing she'll be in for hell tomorrow. Her dreams swim across her eyes, dreams of screaming children and empty funerals and bloody defeat. She's not cut out to be a mother. She's not cut out to be a friend, a lover. She's not cut out to be a boss. She's just not cut out at all.

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AN: Love it, hate it? Kind of short, I know. This is my first Cuddy piece, and I'd love to know what you think. All reviews welcome :) 


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